


charcoal words and chocolate eyes

by armyofbees



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Era, M/M, Metaphors, alexander has a glass heart, and paper skin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:19:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/armyofbees/pseuds/armyofbees
Summary: There’s stars in his eyes and charcoal in his voice and Alexander is falling fast, falling hard.





	

There’s stars in his eyes and charcoal in his voice and Alexander is falling fast, falling hard. Falling because he’s jumped off a cliff into the stars and he can smell the smoke rising around him. Falling because the sky is so lovely and  _ who wouldn’t want to be close to it? _

There’s rage in his veins and passion in his heart and Alexander is afraid that John is going to break apart. John is dressed in diamonds that look like tears and skin that looks like paper and with all of that fire, he’s going to burn. But flame is so lovely and John is so  _ alive _ that Alexander thinks he’d just learn how to fly.

There’s a red, white, and blue flag above the door, and Alexander is sure it means something other than  _ John, _ but he really can’t be bothered to find out what. Can’t be bothered because it means that he’d have to take his mind off of his diamond boy. His diamond boy, who just asked him to watch him risk his life, and who kissed him until he said yes.

John stands in a field of red grass, red because of the rising sun, red because it’s already stained with his blood, red because John has finally caught aflame. Alexander was wrong, John doesn’t learn how to fly, not when his paper skin is burning and his teardrop diamonds are melting with all the heat. John can’t fly, because his wings are made of fire, too, and all he does is burn. His skin crackles as he raises his pistol, his wings flare as he fires, and Alex can’t take his eyes off of his diamond boy.

After that, John burns much more easily. He catches fire when his horse falls out from underneath him, when there’s a barrel pointed at his head, when Alexander holds him tight afterward.

There’s stars in his eyes and charcoal in his voice and he has paper for skin and diamonds that look like tears and a fire burning inside him, and Alexander is so scared. Scared because he’s going away and Alexander won’t be able to calm the fire when it gets too high, won’t be able to make sure his skin doesn’t crack, won’t be able to count the stars in his eyes, just to make sure they’re  _ there. _

He doesn’t know when this feeling spills over, but when it does, John is there, with feathers in his hands and silk in his words and Alexander borrows some of his diamonds, because he thinks he’s lost all of his own.

And then John’s gone, his diamond boy is miles and miles and miles away, and every letter is a shard of glass in his heart. At some point, he forgets to differentiate, and his heart is glass now, and he’s afraid that if he lets anyone touch it, it’ll shatter. He’s afraid  _ he’ll _ shatter. He’ll shatter because he never learned to live with the paper skin and teardrop diamonds that come with a glass heart, like John did, and  _ oh, God, how did he never know? _

Alexander’s heart has always been made of steel, dark and hard and untouchable. He doesn’t know what to do with his translucent heart that pumps translucent blood and shows every little detail as it spills over his paper arms.

Alexander takes comfort where he can. With his friends, with his fellow soldiers, with the town’s girls. With a girl with chocolate eyes and a lace heart and velvet skin. She is so different from John, because what room is there for stars in something already so rich? What fire can bloom under a skin so soft? For a while, glass almost seems bearable.

For a while, Alexander forgets that John has a glass heart too, forgets how much his flame can flare, forgets the way his diamonds spill over his face and make his stars glow.

He’s reminded, violently, when John’s response is written with translucent blood on a piece of shattered glass aimed directly for his heart. No amount of lace can patch the hole it leaves, no amount of velvet can cover the tear it makes. Suddenly, glass is overwhelming.

Glass breaks abruptly, violently. With a well-aimed shot and one loud crash and then another as it hits the floor. With torn paper and diamond shards and fallen stars and fading embers and the faint smell of coal. Glass lies in pieces until it can be found, picked up, cleaned, and thrown in the ground. And so it goes.

Eliza reads him the letter, her chocolate eyes melting as Alexander struggles to hold onto the last of John’s borrowed diamonds, struggles to hold the tear in his chest closed, struggles to force his broken glass to beat. He fails, of course; he knows she can see his hurricane lungs through the tear in his paper skin. He knows she can see the hole in his glass heart. He knows that John’s diamonds are glinting in his eyes. He knows there is nothing she can do.

Slowly, Alexander learns how to patch up his holes. It never quite works as it should. His heart is still glass and his skin is still paper, but Eliza teaches him how to sew paper without tearing it, and he manages to find some steel to reinforce his glass. His blood is still clear in his veins and where it runs down his wrists, but he writes defense into his paper skin and no one is able to tell.

Alexander is never quite whole again, but he learns how to look like he is, and isn’t that good enough?


End file.
